Thinking through the social stratification of the spaces of crime with Michel Foucault and Stéphanie Saint-Clair

Using Michel Foucault’s reflections on ‘penality’ as our starting point, the idea of “differential management of illegalities” has mainly given rise to work on the justice and prison systems before being extended to other mechanisms of social control. Foucault also suggested taking into account the dialectical relationship between ‘penality’ and spaces of crime, although this point has barely been followed up. One approach is initiated in this article through the examination of the history, experience and struggles of Stephanie Saint-Clair, a Black French woman who became a central figure in the world of illegal lotteries in Harlem, New York in the early 20th century. From this case study, a number of theoretical and methodological issues are highlighted in order to outline an analytical framework that re-articulates the place of criminality and crime in the study of social domination.